"Three Hotels": New troupe shines with corporate marriage drama

The new troupe Our American Theatre has what's required for a fine liftoff in its first full production, "Three Hotels." A literate, provocative script by playwright-screenwriter Jon Robin Baitz. A strong lead portrayal by Todd Licea. And bargain ticket prices — as in, pay-what-you-will for every performance.

Now all the troupe needs is more of an audience for this bracing, deserving show, which runs through June 28 at Theatre Off Jackson.

A 1991 public TV drama, which Baitz adapted for the stage in 1993, "Three Hotels" gauges the moral and emotional toll on the family of Ken Hoyle (Licea), a top executive with an international baby-formula company.

We first meet Hoyle in a hotel room in Morocco, as he mixes and quaffs several stiff martinis while preparing to fire some of his co-workers.

In a caustic monologue, this sleek, globe-trotting "hatchet man" contemplates the task at hand and the devil's bargain he has made to rise in the ranks of a multinational company — one reviled by activists for its aggressive marketing of infant formula to the Third World poor. (Breast milk is not only free but much more healthful.)

One casualty could be his marriage to conscience-stricken wife Barbara (Lisa Carswell) — who later, in a Virgin Islands hotel room, reflects on their life together in her own searching monologue.

Barbara has just done her "duty" and addressed a group of other executive spouses. But haunted by grief and regret, she is far from the ideal corporate wife.

In the third scene, set in a modest inn in Mexico, Ken considers just how far the couple has traveled — and how much they have lost on the way.

Baitz knows whereof he speaks. His father was an executive of Carnation Company — a maker of baby formula, among other products — so the writer spent part of his youth abroad.

"Three Hotels" comes down squarely on the anti-corporate side, striking similar chords of moral dismay as John le Carré's later work "The Constant Gardener." It is wholly critical of Ken's choices and throws in a family tragedy for good measure.

But Baitz makes matters less cut and dried by endowing his characters with intelligence, eloquence and self-awareness. And in Licea's well-shaded performance, Ken is no cardboard villain, but a man trapped in the power and perks of a global workplace — at the price of self-loathing, and other scourges.

Like Licea, Carswell seems a few years young for her middle-age role. And her work as Barbara is a bit more tentative, without the tinge of bitterness the writing suggests.

But director Susanna Burney's cogent mounting of "Three Hotels" is a fine start for a new company dedicated to thoughtful American plays — like this one.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com